Quench-induced supercurrents in an annular Bose gas

TL;DR

This study demonstrates how temperature quenches induce supercurrents in annular Bose gases, with measurements aligning with the Kibble-Zurek mechanism's predictions about their stochastic nature and distribution.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence of quench-induced supercurrents in 2D Bose gases and compares their statistical distribution with theoretical models.

Findings

Supercurrents are generated by temperature quenches.

The supercurrents exhibit stochastic behavior.

Their distribution matches Kibble-Zurek predictions.

Abstract

We create supercurrents in annular two-dimensional Bose gases through a temperature quench of the normal-to-superfluid phase transition. We detect the amplitude and the chirality of these supercurrents by measuring spiral patterns resulting from the interference of the cloud with a central reference disk. These measurements demonstrate the stochastic nature of the supercurrents. We further measure their distribution for different quench times and compare it with the predictions based on the Kibble-Zurek mechanism.